The NASA standard tool for thermohydraulic analysis, SINDA/FLUINT, includes thermodynamic and hydrodynamic solutions specifically targeted at the growing demand for design and analysis of liquid propulsion systems. Applications in this field have included:

Modeling to predict the condition of cryogenic propellants in an upper stage of a launch vehicle is necessary for mission planning and successful execution. Traditionally, this effort was performed using custom, in-house proprietary codes, limiting accessibility and application. Phenomena responsible for influencing the thermodynamic state of the propellant have been characterized as distinct events whose sequence defines a mission. These events include thermal stratification, passive thermal control roll (rotation), slosh, and engine firing.

Thermal analysis is typically performed using a point design approach, where a single model is analyzed one analysis case at a time. Changes to the system design are analyzed by updating the thermal radiation and conduction models by hand, which can become a bottleneck when attempting to adopt a concurrent engineering approach. This paper presents the parametric modeling features that have been added to Thermal DesktopTM to support concurrent engineering. The thermal model may now be characterized by a set of design variables that are easily modified to reflect system level design changes.